SW News: A prominent Armenian bishop has warned that if Armenia falls, Europe risks being Islamized. It was Bishop Vrtanes Abrahamyan, the primate of Artsakh, which encompasses the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, who made this statement during a recent interview with the Italian magazine Tempi.

Strongly denouncing the recent attacks on Armenian troops by neighboring Azerbaijan, Bishop Abrahamyan said the future of Christianity is at stake. “Christianity for us is not a dress that we can put on and take off at will. It is our skin and it cannot be changed. Throughout history, we have never betrayed Jesus. We will be happy if other people help us carry this cross,” said the prelate. He added that even if Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wants to give away Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, Armenians are aware that it can never be part of that country.

"Azerbaijan and Turkey view Armenia as a cancer,” said Bishop Abrahamyan in the interview, adding that they will not stop until they wipe out the nation from the map. "They will not stop until they have eliminated us all and expelled us from our land. This is the cross we Armenians must carry with pain and pride and we will do it until the end."

The disputed territory has always been inhabited by Armenians and it became contested land during the time of Russian Premiere Joseph Stalin who annexed it to Azerbaijan. Bishop Abrahamyan went on to say that after Azeri troops conquered vast swathes of land in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, the local population was forced to flee in order to escape persecution. The prelate said that all new churches have been bulldozed and the old ones are being stripped of their Armenian identity by claiming that they are Albanian places of worship.

Bishop Abrahamyan bemoaned that in spite of the appeal of Catholicos Karekin II of the Armenian Apostolic Church to world institutions and UNESCO, no delegation has been dispatched to inspect the condition of the centuries-old churches in Nagorno-Karabakh. “It is painful for us to see that even UNESCO is silent in the face of this scandal,” the bishop said.

During the 44-day conflict in 2020, Azeri 7,000 people, mostly Armenians, lost their lives and countless houses, historic churches and monasteries were destroyed or damaged in the shelling. Armenia was the first nation in the world to be totally Christianized. It was in AD 301 that King Tiridates III converted to Christianity through the efforts of St Gregory the Illuminator and declared the Christian faith to be the state religion.